Elon University has published the results of a poll forseeing where the Internet will be ten years from now. I want to comment on these results.

The poll was conducted as a collaboration between Elon University and the Pew Internet & American Life Project, targeting nearly 1,300 technology experts and scholars from high profile companies and organizations like IBM, AOL, Microsoft, Intel, Google, Internet2, Oracle, Harvard, MIT and Yale, Federal Communications Commission, FBI, U.S. Census Bureau, Social Security Administration and U.S. Department of State.

The poll asked these people questions designed to forecast the next decade of the Internet. If you want the full details on how the poll was conducted, visit Elon University.

The study's findings basically show that these "experts" don't have any guts. Their "predictions" are pretty much soft and weak. That is, they didn't want to jeopardize their reputations, or their company's reputation, and say something so incredible, or out-of-this-world.

After all, we are talking about ten years into the future. It is often said that every ten years society witnesses a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift is a pretty big change. So let's take a look at the weak and soft "predictions" that these "industry experts" have bestowed to us:

Two-thirds of the experts predict at least one devastating attack on network information infrastructure or the country's power grid in the next 10 years. Some experts believe serious attacks will become a regular part of life.

Oh come on! Serious attacks are happening all the time. How many times do we hear about a company's network that got hacked? How many times have we heard about a worm that exploited the latest Windows XP security hole?

59 percent of these experts predict increased government and business surveillance as computing devices are embedded in appliances, cars, phones and even clothing.

Weak! We are already being monitored by the feds. They currently enjoy the power to randomly intercept e-mails, install keyboard tracking spyware, and they have agents trolling the message boards for porn addicts. How much of an expert does one have to be to make this prediction?

57 percent of these experts predict more virtual classes in formal education, with students grouped by interests and skills, rather than by age.

Is this a bold prediction? Almost every college now offers online classes. Is this what the experts have to tell us?

56 percent of these experts predict changes in family dynamics and a blurring of the boundaries between work and leisure as telecommuting and home-schooling expand.

What this is saying is that because more people are working from home, people will be mixing work and pleasure so much, that we won't know when we're working and when we're playing. But again this is obvious. How many of you full-time webbers out there experience this already? Is this a prediction of the future?

54 percent look for a new age of creativity in which people use the Internet to collaborate with others and share music, art and literature.

This is probably the most politically correct way of saying that more people will be copying MP3s and downloading movies in the future. This isn't a "new age of creativity". First, this is already happening. What this is file sharing, not creativity.

53 percent predict that all video, audio, print and voice communications will stream to coordinating computers in homes and offices via the Internet.

This may be the only bold prediction out of the bunch, and to most of us bloggers and publishers, we already know this. The Internet will provide us with a way to customize all delivery of information, and manage it from a single point. RSS technology is the start of this.

The Internet experts believe the news and publishing industries will undergo the most dramatic changes over the next decade, with new "digital media titans" forming connections across media, entertainment, advertising and commerce. They also predict major changes ahead for educational institutions, workplaces and health care institutions. Fewer changes are predicted for religious organizations.

You can already see this happening with Amazon, Google and Yahoo. All three have invested into search technology, e-commerce searching, and publishing. But again, this is not a bold look into the new paradigm. We already know this.

While some experts look for the development of a "more thoughtful" Internet, others are more pessimistic, calling the increasing online data "drivel," diluting the quality of information that is available.

This is another politically correct statement saying that the old guys will downplay the Internet, citing that the millions of blogs don't do the due diligence in their research. It's true, but it's no prediction. One only needs to listen to Bill O'Reilly to know this.

The problem with predicting the future is that there are too many unforseen variables. The experts here are using today's variables to arrive at predictions. For example, who in 1994 could have predicted that bloggers will play a key media role in the Presidential Election 10 years into the future? No one could have predicted that. The period from 1994 to 2004 represented a "paradigm shift".

A complete change in paradigm happens every 10 years. In 1994, I remember being a little depressed because it seemed like my career was going nowhere. But ten years later, I'm here now working for myself as a blogger, Internet publisher and marketer, and feeling great. A total paradigm shift.

You just can't predict what's going to happen ten years from now. So, these industry experts are pansies to make such weak and safe predictions. For being connected to such big name technology companies, is this all they can come up with??

Labels: Paradigms, Predictions